


The World's Great Graveyard Deep

by LocketShoru



Category: Saint Seiya, 聖闘士星矢: 冥王神話 | Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas
Genre: 15th Century Holy War, AAverse, Aries Gateguard's POV, Autistic!Aries Gateguard, Bastardization Arc, Corruption, First Meetings, Happy Ending, M/M, Saint Seiya Rarepair Week 2020, Slice of Life, Spectrefication Arc, Universe Alteration - Anthropomorphic, Universe Alteration - Otherkin, no beta we die like gold saints
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:55:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26922484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LocketShoru/pseuds/LocketShoru
Summary: [Day 5: Corruption] He got shot. Again. He wakes up against his honest belief, again. He's not as dead as he thought - okay, that's a first. He's faced with a Spectre who isn't going to kill him for breathing, also a first. And this time, the companion that saved him is one that likes him. Maybe the third time really is the charm.
Relationships: Aries Gateguard/Balrog Lune
Comments: 11
Kudos: 2
Collections: Saint Seiya Rarepair Week 2020





	The World's Great Graveyard Deep

**Author's Note:**

> I know I know I'm still a day behind. I'm working on it. Today has been busy. But I still wanted to get this one out, so here we are!  
> Luné is named Selene here, because I like the idea of the reincarnating Spectres having a name theme instead of the exact same name. You know, considering 'Valentine' is a Roman name that didn't exist until a thousand years after the Bronze Age, and a lot of others. And because the original Minotaur - who is Gordon - was originally named Asterius. So Luné gets a different name that also means moon, because his name is either Luné, as in moon, or Runé, as in "runic character of a language". Both are good, I prefer Luné, and so thus, Selene.  
> Also featuring some more inhumanity, though not as much because we aren't really getting into Selene here. This is a Gate fic, that also features him and Selene. I really need to write more of the two, considering their entire relationship is a tragedy that coalesced into Gate dying before he finds out he's going to be a father, because Sage happened. ("Because Sage happened" explains way too much of TLC, tbh.)  
> So yeah. Have some bastardization arc.

"Gold star to the Libra. I'm sure he thought he was helping."

The voice was almost fuzzy, a little distant, and he was lucky he made sense of any of it. The words followed from one to the next, but he couldn't… Itia. Itia, of course, brave Itia who had raised him and kept him and showed him to to ensure he never had to fear the bow of the Sagittarius. He didn't recognize the voice.

"We still have the Pisces," said another voice, a softer one. "She's new, but she's vicious."

"Which means we won't be able to hold her. She will snap out of it," answered the first voice. Opening his eyes to see who the speakers were seemed too large a task. His eyes wouldn't open, and he was incapable of pulling them apart. If he focused, he could almost hear metallic footsteps approaching him.

"She isn't under our power. She came over voluntarily, and holds her proper place."

"Interesting. And what of this one?" He felt something brush up against his collarbone, pulling up what he thought was a blanket to his chin.

"He hasn't stirred once since we brought him in, but I'm under orders. He was working with the Libra, I don't know how much he knows. But he's yours if you want him." That didn't sound right. It couldn't sound right. He hadn't been brought anywhere. He'd been shot dead by that cursed Altar Saint, the one who didn't deserve his position and only got it because his twin was a Cancer. Those damned twins…

His anger was enough to open his eyes, and he found himself staring up at a vaulted ceiling, a dark blue marble with a crystal chandelier. Now that he could open his eyes, he tilted his head to one side, looking over at what had to be the two speakers.

Both were wearing dark armour. Or rather, one was wearing armour, and the other… appeared to simply _be_ armour, floating and sentient without a person inside it. With folded gloves, of course, because he needed to be dealing with an annoyed version of the Aries Cloth dressed in black. He was fairly certain this wasn't his Cloth, though - they still had a few scratches he'd never managed to properly fix.

The person of the two was only wearing half a suit of armour - gorget, wings, tassets, and boots. He was shirtless and had long, pale platinum hair, and he didn't look very impressed either.

He focused, forcing his arms to loosen up from their stiffness and push him up into a sitting position. He wasn't in any sort of pain, but he did feel stiff, like he'd recently been healed over by magic.

"Well, look who finally woke up," said the dark Aries Cloth, and he looked over at them.

"You're Aries, and you're not Aries, and I would love to know where I am," he answered. His voice was a little hoarse, but in better condition than he expected to be in. Even his left shoulder, where he'd been shot again, didn't feel all that bad.

"I am Seigneur Aries, Surplice of the Sundial Ram, and you are in the Cathedral," they answered, almost darkly. They glanced over at the Spectre. "I have things to do. Let me know when he can stand properly and is ready to begin his duties. Until such a time, he is properly your problem, and not a single bit of mine."

The Spectre only nodded, and the Surplice - the Aries surplice, he supposed - was gone, vanishing in a teleport. Gateguard shifted around to get a good look at the Spectre. "Who might you be?" he asked, warily. "And where is this cathedral? I should want to know."

"You should want to know a lot of things, or you wouldn't be here," the Spectre answered somewhat peevishly. He stepped closer, scanning him over, arms resting on his hips. "You know what we do to Saints, when we're given half a chance to bring them to proper justice? We bury then in Cocytus, as far under the ice as we can mine, and we leave them there until they fade. But I'm on orders not to do that to you. Tell me why I shouldn't disobey that order, and bury you anyway."

He blinked. He had been hoping for actual answers, not that he was going to get any. Spectres were pretty good at having their noses in his business and their heads up in places they probably shouldn't have been. At least, that was what Itia said. Itia hadn't told him much about how the Spectres worked, simply that they were useful for now and easy to defeat later. He hadn't ever sided with them. Only used them for his own plans.

"I'm going to guess lying to you in order to escape is a terrible idea, and I wouldn't succeed," he muttered. He took the moment to look around the room, finding it utterly unrecognizable if actually quite spacious, as far as bedchambers went. It looked like a cross between a forgeroom and a bedchamber, but he was presently in a bed, so perhaps it managed to be more of the latter.

"You're a dead man walking only under my power, and otherwise are nothing but a dead soul, so you would be correct on that conclusion. At least you're smart enough to figure that out."

He snorted. The Spectre raised a pale eyebrow. The slight pinkish tinge to his hair couldn't have been from the lighting of the room, scattering cyan light across every surface like candlelight. This one didn't seem to have much interest in the way of being flowery or overdramatic. He got right to the point. If he had to be dead, he figured this Spectre might make a better ally than the others.

"Good to know." He cleared his throat. "Well, here's the version I know: Libra Itia has been working with you, and he raised me, so I guess that makes us allies, so long as he finishes ensuring that Athena Sendai does as he wants, and then I guess he wanted to crush the lot of you, too, once you were done doing his dirty work. We were overtaken in his receiving room by those heretic twins, they shot me and kept going. I think I got a message to Itia, Sage wanted the seat of Pope, but I don't know if I got through."

The Spectre listened silently, hands still on his hips, one eyebrow still raised. "I see. Well. Libra Itia is dead, and Cancer Sage has claimed the mantle of Pope. Or rather, he grabbed it and immediately threw it at Aquarius Krest. I believe there was a screaming match over who wanted it less. Currently, the Aquarius is standing in as Pope due to his experience in command. We were not able to resurrect the Libra, however, we did get you. So now it is simply time to see if you're worth the effort."

He couldn't tell if the Spectre was annoyed with him or not. He never could tell what others were trying to say if they didn't come right out and say it. Social skills had never been his forte. "Well, then. How do I go about proving that, nameless Spectre?"

The corner of the Spectre's mouth twitched. He couldn't tell if it was trying to become a scowl or a smile. "Balrog Selene. As for how you go about proving it… Let's see if you can handle your existence here, and if I think you're worth feeding, we'll see what happens after that."

He offered an awkward half-smile, more stretching his lips than actually smiling. The Spectre turned away and strode across the room, heading to leave. Gateguard swung his legs over the side of the bed, rising to follow him. "Then I'll find a way to pass your test. Please don't feed me pomegranates. I hear those aren't very good for the mental stability or the freedom."

In the silence of wherever this cathedral was, he could just barely hear him suppress laughter.

It turned out, where he'd been was behind a secret door, which fed out into a statue's alcove inside an actual cathedral. The other alcoves had statues, totem-form Surplices that almost exactly mirrored the Gold Cloths - although these versions looked spikier. He supposed, then, that it only made sense Aries wasn't here. They did certainly seem to have the mobility to open doors and leave the halls, but that wasn't up to him to say.

Selene lead the way from the cathedral out into a courtyard with a fountain. Gateguard paused only briefly to appreciate the fountain, with the fact it had a metal sundial clock set into its depths. He peered over into the water that the stone statue of Hades was pouring from a jug, and blinked. The clock was an astronomical clock, more gears in it than he actually knew how to read. His speciality was talking to and bleeding over Cloths, not reading the stars. That had always been Itia's job.

"Are you coming? There's time enough later for you to admire your front yard," Selene commented. Gateguard looked up, realizing he was already at the edge of the clearing, and hurried to follow him.

"My front yard?" He caught up with him as Selene resumed walking, focusing instead on him over the forest they were about to enter. It didn't look very friendly, and something about it bothered him. He'd never seen any of this before, and he wasn't sure he ever wanted to see it again. "Am I supposed to live in the cathedral over there?"

"If we decide to keep you, yes. We wouldn't keep you in the Aries quarters otherwise." Selene reached up to brush his hair out from between his wings and his shoulder blades as he walked. Gateguard kept an eye on the other, watching just in case something was going to happen. For a moment, he could fully see the Saint's back, only to realize that the wings he'd taken for entirely worn metal were only half metal at all - his wings were actually connected to his shoulder blades, scales spreading across the back of his shoulders and down, following the line of his spine.

He'd completely missed the whiplike tail until it caught him in the back of the knee. He swore at the impact.

"My apologies," Selene said, casually enough. "I wouldn't recommend walking so close to someone with a tail, until you figure out how to avoid getting hit with it."

Gateguard looked at him. "How did you end up with wings and a tail?" he demanded. "I thought you were perfectly human. Now…. Now I'm not so sure."

Selene spared him a glance from behind his bangs, and snorted. "Please. The Meikai makes monsters of everyone here with a beating heart. We're in the middle of a Holy War, nobody's walking around able to perfectly pass for human. At least it's early enough that nobody has yet attempted to shift completely into their therianthropic form and run away into the woods to avoid their duty. I do so hate having to pull them back."

"You say a lot of things, and I'm sure they make sense inside your head, but they don't make very much outside of it," he muttered. He wasn't entirely sure what actually had just been said, though he was sure Selene thought it made a perfectly good explanation.

"And most of the things you say are quite rude, so it looks like neither of us are getting what we want for the next few hours. Pity us." They were walking deeper into the forest now, and he wasn't sure if they were going to another area, or if the forest actually ended at some point. Sure enough, Selene stuck a bat wing directly in front of his face, and he stopped.

Selene pulled his wing back, allowing Gateguard to get a look at what was in front of him. He took a careful step forward, leaning ever so slightly towards the edge of the cliff.

The cliff seemed to extend to his right, before pulling back into view a few miles off with a giant, fruiting tree beside a waterfall of scarlet, frothy water. At the bottom of the cliff was a honeycomb of craters on either side of the scarlet river, all filled with that same red, red water. Beyond it looked to be a snowy wasteland. Cocytus, if he remembered Selene's words correctly.

And if the wasteland there was Cocytus, then… He allowed his eyes to travel further out into the distance, where the cliffs rose again. Atop them, across the valley, was a castle. It looked like what he might have expected Olympus to look like, if it were shrouded in darkness and the cosmos of pure cruelty. He didn't know if he wanted to leave this place or love it. So he did the only thing he could think of, and bring two fingers to his mouth, and whistle.

It echoed like not even Jamir could have managed. Like it could penetrate every single crevice and crack and come bounding back. It rang once, twice, three times before the sound faded. He drew back, not enough to limit his visibility, but enough for a modicum of safety. He turned to Selene, who was leaned against a tree, arms folded and looking nonchalant. 

"So now what?" he asked. "Am I supposed to run screaming? I don't feel like doing that, you see."

Selene's smile was slow, and cruel, and somehow expected. Spectres were like that. He didn't rise from his leaning position. "Here's what you're going to do, then. You see, down in those valleys by the river, a building of sandstone."

He glanced down again, and nodded assent. "Yes."

"Good. What you're going to do is burn a bit of your cosmos, and make a solid rope of it in your hands."

He looked down at his hands, took a breath, and called his cosmos. It came at his call, where he hadn't been able to feel it a moment prior. It sparkled like so much stardust under his skin, darker than it had ever been before. Dark enough that he could see it around his hands like twin balls of fire, until he could thread it with his mind together, braiding the strands of burning starlight, until he was sure it would hold solid. He looked up again.

"Reach up with it above your head until it catches onto something, and won't come back down."

He couldn't see anything above him, but he swung his arms upward, until the rope of cosmos caught onto something thin, like a hook, or a rod. He tugged experimentally. It didn't give way.

"Are you going to let go of the rope?"

"No. Should I?" He glanced back over. Selene's face was unreadable, but then again, so many people's were. He couldn't even read Itia, even when he genuinely wanted to.

"Of course not. Look back to that sandstone building, and whatever you do, don't take your eyes off." He focused on the building. It would be reasonably large, he thought, once he was there. He assumed he would be.

He almost missed Selene rising from his spot, but he heard him step over to him, just behind him. He definitely didn't miss the pressure of his clawed hands against his back, or the feeling of beng shoved off the cliff.

Gateguard screamed. There wasn't anything else to do. He shut his eyes on instinct, and he screamed. After a few seconds, he realized he wasn't quite falling. It seemed, almost, like he was going forward, not just straight down. The scream faded in his throat, and he dared to open an eye.

He wasn't falling. No, he couldn't have been. He was _flying_.

He was still descending, yes, as if flying directly for the building at the river's edge, but he wasn't falling, he was certainly flying, faster than he'd ever run before. He dared a moment to look up to his braided rope of cosmos, wondering, to see that it had caught on some sort of line, like a clothes' line straight from where he'd been to the building. He focused, for just a second more, and he could see more lines just like it.

Selene had told him not to look anywhere but the building. He kept his wrists tilted down, towards it, and looked at his surroundings as he flew into the valley below.

He'd come from the forest atop the cliffs. To his left was what looked like a particularly large lake, or perhaps a sea, still and quiet and black. To his right, the cliffs where the forest broke away to desert, save for that one fruiting tree, which may well have reached up into the heavens. It was a glorious sight, almost, if any of it had been welcoming.

"Having fun yet?" asked a soft, masculine voice beside him, and he was lucky he didn't fall off the line from jumping. Selene turned a graceful cartwheel in the air, wingspan definitely larger than it had been a moment ago with his feet on the ground.

"You shoved me off a cliff!" Gateguard yelped.

"No, I set you on the zipline and gave you a push," Selene corrected. "Not all of us have wings, Aries-fool. Did you really think we wouldn't find a way to make walking from one side of the Meikai to the other easier? Climb anything more than ten feet off the ground, grab on, and throw yourself in the direction of where you want to go." He gestured towards a point on the horizon. If he squinted, he could see another Spectre, coasting one-handed with a book in their other hand, flying towards the same building.

It was actually quite impressive. Itia had always referred to the Spectres as beasts and simpleminded brutes. Maybe he had been wrong the entire time. After all, Sanctuary had never come up with something like this.

"How do I land?" he asked, somewhat abruptly. "I really hope you're not going to watch me drive myself two feet into solid rock and laugh at me."

"Can't a poor demon hope?" Selene asked rhetorically in response. "Just let go when you've got a safe spot to land, and try not to stick the landing. Hurts like a Gemini if you do."

He nodded, stifling laughter. The turn of phrase was a little funny, he had to admit - and Selene was right, doing anything that involved the Gemini Saint usually ended with several broken bones. He was getting closer to the ground now, too - another few moments and he'd be over the river. There was a clear patch of ground, almost outlined in the short, yellowing grass, as if intended for this very purpose.

He took a breath, and when he was sure his momentum wouldn't throw him over, he let go of his rope, allowing it to dissipate. He hit the ground with his toes, allowing himself to roll directly into a somersault or two, until he came to stop on the edge of the grass. Selene landed beside him, graceful as anything, and he was now wearing full armour, where he hadn't before.

Gateguard rose, dusting off his bare, red-black tunic and trousers. "Did I do all right?" he asked. He could smell food, now, of all sorts, and that meant he probably passed the first test. He was hungry, now that he could smell food, but he wasn't sure what for - nothing he'd usually go for sounded good.

Selene nodded. "You didn't start to panic in the forest at all. The Meikai allowed you on the zipline. You listened to what I told you to do, and look at that. We're here." He turned to head up the stairs and inside the open doors, which was definitely where the scent of food was coming from. Gateguard followed, none too concerned about the Spectre who had just landed behind him. Selene could have killed him easily several times so far, and hadn't, and that had to count for something.

The moment he was up the stairs, he could see the inside of the building, which was very clearly a mess hall. Sanctuary had something like it, but this was all tables and booths with a bar off to one side. The area in the middle, however, opened out onto a lifted dais, fenced off from everything else.

Like a fighting ring. Gateguard glanced over to Selene, who was heading towards another Spectre, and the Aries Surplice, who he noted was wearing a white cape not unlike the one he'd had with his cloth. He followed him, hurrying to catch up, until they were well within earshot of the winged Spectre and Aries.

"Evening, Sire," Selene said, all too casually to the other Spectre. The other looked up, displaying hair a similar red-pink to Gateguard's own, eyes a dark but piercing blue, and skin approximately the colour of a deep sepia. "Put the newbie over here on the list, will you?" He jabbed a thumb at Gateguard.

"The list for what?" he asked. The Spectre raised an eyebrow, amused. He blinked. What he'd taken for sideburns and the starts to a good beard was, at second glance, small feathers a little darker than his hair. Those same feathers ran down the side of his neck, spilling out near his armpits and by his tailbone. Yes, even his wings were a very dark shade not unlike his hair, covered by his bluish-violet surplice. It didn't exactly match, but he was pretty enough.

"The list for the sparring rounds, naturally," said the Spectre. He scribbled something down onto his scroll, presumably Gateguard's name. "You're new, and if you're stuck with Selene, well, here's a chance to prove yourself proper. We'll throw you in the ring and see if you survive."

He glanced at Selene, whose face was still unreadable, and back at the Spectre with the feathers. "All right. I don't think I can get more dead, considering I already did that, so I don't think it'll be the worst thing I've ever done."

Selene made a noise that seemed between a snort of laughter and a growl no human could have made. The Spectre with the scroll scoffed. "Good attitude." He looked up at him, flashing a smile full of needle-sharp, pale teeth. "Garuda Aiacos, by the way. Judge of Hell. Apparent older brother to Pisces Tiff, I expect you know her."

He paused, before nodding. "We never call her that, but yes, I do. You look nothing like her, but you also have feathers, so I'm guessing that's normal for Spectre families."

Aries, who had been quietly watching, pressed their empty gauntlet to the opening of their equally empty helmet, shaking it slightly. "And you want me to keep this moron?" they asked.

"That's up to him. Hope you don't mind the ring, Seigneur, because you'll need to help him out." Aiacos looked over to him, eyes glittering with something he didn't recognize. Maybe assessing him. He wasn't sure. "She's not my sister by blood. She showed up with a surplice and said we're throwing her a wedding, so we did, and I accepted her as my younger sister. What else did you expect me to do? Tell her no thanks, two idiot brothers is enough for me, go harass someone else? She brings food."

"And Aiacos will call anyone who feeds him family, hence why there's more Garudas than either of the other divisions," Selene cut in. "Let him starve, it isn't your problem, Aries. Let's go get some food before the bloodbath starts, shall we?"

He turned on his heel and walked away. Gateguard hesitated, looking at the Aries surplice, who had fortunately stopped shaking their helmet at him. "I think you and I should be sticking together," he began, hesitant.

"If that's what you want." Aries shrugged, an odd movement with no shoulders and only pauldrons. "Do me a favour and don't waste my time. You're sane, that's better than I expected, but you're going to need to do more than that to survive here."

Gateguard nodded - really, what did he expect? - and carefully offered his hand to shake. As far as he knew, that was a good way to introduce himself. "I'm Gateguard. I don't think I introduced myself before."

Aries took his hand, and shook. "You didn't. I do hope you're here to stay. There's so much more you're going to learn if you do."

The fight was over in less than thirty seconds. He swallowed another mouthful of his own blood, baring his teeth, teeth that had shifted and changed to something wider, sharper, less likely to fit in a human mouth and more akin to a hooved predator.

He didn't have hooves yet. From what he had learned from Selene and Aries, he was going to wake up with them. On the other side of the ring, the Bean Sidhe staggered back to his feet. Aiacos blew the whistle.

"That's a match! And our winner iiiiiis- Aries Gateguard, our newcomer of the night!" His voice was louder, enhanced by what he thought was a spell. He certainly didn't have an instrument amplifying his voice. He stepped - or rather, limped - over to the Bean Sidhe, who couldn't have been more than sixteen, a year younger than him, and offered his hand to help him up. The Spectre took it, and finished the process of standing. They leaned ever so slightly onto each other, limping off the stage and out of the ring.

Selene was waiting by the entrance, and beside him, a Spectre with pretty almost-dragonfly wings and cropped, intensely-green hair. The Bean Sidhe, whose name he didn't actually know, stagged over to the dragonfly Spectre and all but collapsed into them. Gateguard made his way over to Selene, who held up his hand. He grinned, and high-fived him.

"Did I do okay?" he asked. Selene gave him a twitch of a smile, flicking that whiplike tail. He'd faced off against another powerful Spectre a few rounds prior, and that tail had been the key to his victory. Especially when he managed to snap it fast enough to create a sonic boom.

"That depends. Do you think you'll be in the ring again next week?" Selene asked. Gateguard paused. Would he?

There was nothing left for him in Sanctuary. No, the food was good, it looked like he had a lot of training ahead of him, and he didn't want to punch Selene in the throat for breathing near him. Plus the fights were actually challenging.

 _If you stay, you'll be one of us,_ Aries whispered. He'd been wearing the surplice all evening, since Selene had helped strap him into them. _If you stay, you will be as much a ram as I am. Rams are monsters, you know. And when you stuff this many monsters into a single realm, they find a way to speak to one another._

If he stayed, he was a monster. But so was Selene, and the Bean Sidhe, and as he watched Pisces Theophania, clad in a surplice and mercilessly nothing else, ascend the stage, he looked back at Selene and nodded.

"I think so. It'll depend on whether or not I faceplant trying to land the zipline again," he finally said.

Selene answered him with a proper laugh. "I'll teach you, if you feel like listening."

The Bean Sidhe interrupted them both with an overdramatic gag. "Get a room, then," he said. "Don't flirt when I'm trying to stand here and bleed to death all over again."

Gateguard scoffed. "I'll flirt with a pretty demon wherever I like." 

Selene rolled his eyes. He didn't know if that was agreement, but it was good enough. He thought he might just be okay with that.


End file.
